


takes over slowly

by orangesparks



Category: Re-Animator (1985)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Multi, some canon borrowed from the deleted scenes of the first movie as well, tw for mentions of Hill's abuse of Meg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 09:40:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5864347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangesparks/pseuds/orangesparks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And it makes sense, it does, that the creep would be more comfortable with a walking corpse than a living woman."</p><p>(Meg survives Dan's first re-animation attempt, they go on the run with West, wacky hijinks ensue.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	takes over slowly

**Author's Note:**

> written/posted around 2010 on ye olde LJ

She screams.  
  
Vocal cords shriek wetly, crookedly; vibrations sing like jagged shards of glass, piercing every square inch of her throat, chest, spine.  
  
(Birth is always painful.)  
  
Her vision is dim. Dan is whispering, stroking her hair, and she wants to shove him away, get him to _stop touching her_ , because every single sound blurs into a loud muffled roar and the sensation of fingers on her scalp feel like needle-barbed millipedes crawling over her skin and it all just needs to _stop_.  
  
She makes out, dully, a commotion from the doorway. Someone who looks like Dr. Harrod rushes in. Several others follow her. Their collective shouts make Meg sit bolt upright on the table, skin still burning and prickling.  
  
Dan weaves excuses, manages somehow to sweep her out of the room past the concerned faces, the outstretched hands, and she'd be putting up more of a struggle if moving didn't _hurt_ so goddamned much.  
  
She passes in and out of consciousness. The last thing she hears is Dan murmuring to her - probably something nice. Something sweet, comforting.  
  
It still all sounds like a roar.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
She wakes, sprawled over a cheap floral bedspread, what seems like days later.  
  
Dan tells her she's been asleep - no, not asleep, just _out_ of it - for nine hours since he brought her (back) from Miskatonic. She closes her eyes and wills herself to fall back asleep, but that does not happen. Other than some vague trance resembling unconsciousness, no matter how hard she tries, she can no longer sleep.  
  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
  
It takes approximately four days before she accepts what's happened is no perverse dream. Before she realizes that the decomposing, glassy-eyed reflection - something that belongs in a spookhouse maze's mirror instead of a grimy motel bathroom's - belongs to no one but _her_.  
  
She has no appetite. She spends hours simply sitting, staring. She responds with cool disinterest to Dan's attempts to coax her out of the room. It would have been helpful, really, if someone had told her beforehand that the afterlife resembles the most hellish case of mono humanly possible.  
  
For someone normally so careful about her appearance, it's ironic that (like so many others recently deceased) she's only now started wearing a full face of make-up. It's done to keep them below the radar, not draw suspicion to a once apple-cheeked grad student who now resembles some desperate addict in need of a fix. And when Dan stands close, free hand brushing her shoulder, hesitantly smoothing thick drug store foundation over eyelids and cheeks spiderwebbed with faint veins, she tries telling herself that in any other circumstance, this would be funny.  
  
It would. Really.  
  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
  
West appears at the door of their fourth Motel 6 room.  
  
The skin on his mouth and neck and forearms is bruised, scraped raw and riddled with thin, complicated-looking scars. He curtly nods at them before sliding past the door and seating himself at the desk. Unpacking from a tweed messenger bag, demeanor unpleasant as usual, he begins rapidly covering the motel stationery pad with scribbled notes, stashing cracked test tubes and vials over every square inch of the room's plywood furniture.  
  
Meg's far less cheerful than Dan is to see him.  
  
(She imagines the feeling would be mutual if she didn't currently hold the glossy appeal of Brand New Freakish Specimen.)  
  
He still makes her uncomfortable, which is funny, _hilarious_ , considering the situation. Considering the fact that really, _she_ should be the one setting others on edge.  
  
If anything, he prefers her this way.  
  
And it makes sense, it does, that the creep would be more comfortable with a walking corpse than a living woman, none-too-subtly checking her over more than she'd like. Recording vitals. Speed of rotting. Noting whether or not she's turned a putrid enough shade of green yet. _Accidentally_ scraping a fingernail against her arm to get skin samples.  
  
It takes roughly two days of this before she snaps.  
  
"Would you prefer if I just modeled everything on a slab for you?"  
  
He blinks, nonplussed as always.  
  
"Nonsense. I can achieve much the same effect by studying you clothed, provided I can get a clear enough look at a good section of neck or forearm."  
  
Dan has to struggle to hold her back after that remark.  
  
And, okay - one of the few things she actually _likes_ about the goddamn technicolor chemicals sliding through her veins is the extra bit of strength afforded to her.  
  
(It's petty, but the satisfaction of West looking frightened by her is the only thing that calms her down anymore.)  
  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
  
For all his faults (least of all that way he's constantly mentally dissecting her, pinning her with a hard stare, making her feel every bit like a self-conscious _child_ ) - West is the one who notices. Notices the way her hands start refusing to cooperate with her brain, fingers straining and reaching but failing to close and grasp, to hold, as well as they used to.  
  
It's not long before her arms, then legs, join in the betrayal. Her bones feel like still-wet concrete, weighing her down, moving uselessly beneath the straining flesh threading limbs and torso loosely together.  
  
She doesn't blame Dan for missing the signs. He doesn't _want_ to notice, she realizes. He'd rather think that shooting her up with one good dose of glorified embalming fluid is the be-all solution to everything. That they'll just traipse along and survive on gas station food. Continue his and West's twisted research. Experiment on some roadkill, or a dead hitch-hiker or transient, or two.  
  
Pretend that Miskatonic never happened.  
  
The next time Dan disappears in his sputtering Chevy Vega to the nearest Texaco (likely for more noodle packets masquerading as meals), West corners her.  
  
Meg resigns herself. Thinks, _This is it. Now he's going to try and kill me for good._  
  
And then, with a weary giggle: _Oh, sweetheart. Good luck_.  
  
His eyes focus on hers, sharp and slightly delirious, before he backs away a step, rifling in his trusty bag. He surfaces triumphant with a syringe and a small vial, inserting the needle and pulling back until several hashmarks are illuminated by the familiar sick green of the re-agent.  
  
"Turn around," he says softly.  
  
She doesn't know why she listens. But she's tired, mostly. Tired of running. Tired of going through the motions of life now that her primary goals have drifted from earning her master's and marrying her boyfriend to making sure her skin doesn't reek too strongly of decay.  
  
West's fingers settle against the top of her spine, swiping irritably at where strands of blonde hair brush her neck. This close, his aftershave is overpoweringly sour, medicinal.  
  
_He smells like embalming fluid_ , Meg thinks with a shudder. She doesn't know what to think about the fact that he smells almost as much like a corpse as she does.  
  
She suddenly feels uneasy. Other than semi-regular sponge baths, she hasn't really washed since her recent flat decision to hole up entirely in their room of the week. Didn't see much point in it. Hasn't done her best to be the Respectable and Presentable Young Lady she used to ( _Daddy_ used to) pride herself on being, either.  
  
His hand moves slowly over the original puncture mark, the tiny pinprick of a wound that will never heal. Fingers tangle in the hair at the nape of her neck, pushing it aside. She's painfully aware of her disheveled appearance, of how her hair is so dirty, matted.  
  
West doesn't seem to care in the slightest.  
  
_Gee, a man with eyes only for my post-mortem scars_. She mentally rolls her eyes.  
  
How charming.  
  
She acts prim about it, hands folded and clasped loosely in front of her waist, eyes straight ahead -- as prim as a girl about to be shot up with God-knows-how-many cc's of cadaver juice can be, anyway.  
  
She barely feels the needle sliding into her skin, but the accompanying rush of the re-agent makes her jerk up, jaws snapping roughly together in a sharp, sudden reflex. She swoons a little, staggering back into West. It's like a dozen dark wool veils are simultaneously yanked away from her face. Everything is so much _brighter_.  
  
Other than a winded grunt at their brief physical contact, West doesn't scold or belittle her. His hands roughly snake to her shoulders, steadying her until her hands clench into stable fists and she lengthens her spine and can finally stand straight again.  
  
Giddy with newfound strength, she turns, dead dry lips cracked into the closest she's come to a smile in weeks. Unsurprisingly, West doesn't return it. His expression is clinical and dry as ever as he strides past her, fishing for something else in his bag of grotesque tricks. Fussily rolling up his left sleeve, he readies another syringe before presenting her with a rubber tie and his own pallid forearm.  
  
"Now," he says, lips twisted in a wry line, "I have a favor to ask of _you_ , Miss Halsey."  
  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
  
They start taking turns with it.  
  
Whenever she sees the skin beneath his eyes sink and shadow more than normal, the shakes that accompany his withdrawals, whenever he notices her motor skills becoming more clumsy - they exchange dark looks, waiting until Dan's in the shower or doing a grocery run before disappearing outside and behind their drywall lodging of the week, grimly setting to task.  
  
Despite the fact that she is a very formal-sounding _Meg_ an to him now (mostly on her insistence), he'll always be West to her. It's too strange to call someone like him by a first name. Yet something's changed, too. It's simple in how he studies her, eyes lingering on the dark bruises mottling the curve of her neck whenever he angles the needle against her skin.  
  
She's not foolish enough to be sentimental, mistake those looks for concern or growing fondness - he doesn't consider her family, or even a friend. No; with his re-agent the only thing keeping her moving (albeit jerked along by invisible puppet strings most days), he merely sees her as a possession. A responsibility.  
  
Yet it's nice to have a traveling companion not treating her like antique glass the way Dan does, too afraid to kiss or even touch her anymore. For every time Dan subtly finds a way to avoid intimacy, West is barking orders for her to fetch materials and research papers, angle desk lights and move tables, effectively turning her into his metaphorical hunchbacked assistant.  
  
At least the irritation he rouses in her is still a _feeling._  
  
Kindness is not what prompts West to give her the re-agent, no. She is little more than a functioning machine, and one that needs constant refueling, at that. He obviously considers her more his than Dan's, now, but so what? It's just another pattern, one she might find worrying if there weren't staggeringly _bigger_ things to worry over, and it's not until the night Dan confronts her, looking pained and conflicted, that she considers how it might look.  
  
He opens his mouth, then stops, swallowing, Adam's apple jumping in his throat. Scratching at the side of his neck, he looks anywhere but at her. Ashamed - like he thinks he's lost a fight before even stepping into the ring.  
  
"Meg... I just want to know. Are you..." An unconvincing cough. "Are you, and West..."  
  
She breaks into harsh, dry giggles at the very suggestion. It's only the heartbroken look on Dan's face that reins her in.  
  
"Dan." Looping a cold hand around his shoulder, she moves close, pressing her face against his collar bone. She almost forgot how soft his skin is. How warm.  
  
"No, sweetheart. Never."  
  
She lets him take care of her re-agent from now on. Dan's fingers are patient and gentle, nothing like West's.  
  
She only feels slightly guilty the first time Dan draws her close, leveling the syringe, and West's eyes flicker over them dismissively. The bruising grip of his fingers around his pen is the sole indication that he's even noticed their activity.  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
Dr. Carl Hill reappears in their lives somewhere between Richmond and Roanoke. An article that should've been printed in _Weekly World News_ instead of the front page of the _Bland County Messenger_ is the initial tip-off.  
  
West expresses his displeasure by buying out the entire Home and Garden aisle at the nearest highway supply store.  
  
The impracticality of traveling with four shovels and a sinister-looking rake doesn't bother Meg nearly as much as it does Dan. Probably because she wants to see Hill's severed arrogant head hiccuping blood just as much as West does. It's the first surge of raw, angry emotion she's felt since being re-animated.  
  
Although it was Dan who told her about the man's folder of aberrant mementos, she'd suspected it, uncomfortably, long before anything was confirmed. After becoming Dean of Miskatonic's Medical School, Daddy had had Carl Hill over for dinner often - since she was thirteen - and her stomach tightened unpleasantly whenever the man acknowledged her with that sly curl of his lips, eyes crinkled, like there was a wonderful private joke between the two of them he couldn't wait to reveal the punchline of.  
  
That look had always turned her insides more than anything West had done ever would.  
  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
  
Lovers' spat number fifty-four takes place just outside of Bland County Medical Clinic.  
  
She watches them dully, perched cross-legged on a patch of crabgrass, eyes glazed more than usual. West has done his best to wear Dan down and, as per, it won't take long before he crumbles. All of that snapping between the two of them reminds her of dogs. West's some vicious little chihuahua; Dan's the weary bloodhound that just wants said chihuahua to stop biting at its ankles.  
  
A loud _clang_ \- West rapping his flashlight against a defeated-looking road sign - snaps her out of her bemused thoughts. It was likely intentional.  
  
"--credit for _my_ discovery," he finishes with a haughty sniff, then launches into an elaborate _you-idiots-this-is-why-I'm-the-one-in-charge_ monologue. He's apparently willing to burn down the entire hospital if it ensures incinerating Hill permanently.  
  
Dan looks horrified, but Meg isn't fooled anymore. Self-preservation is his primary motivating force these days. West just looks impatient. They could care less about her opinion right now, but her eyes narrow, remembering the late doctor leering over her, the echo of her own pathetic screams, and she suddenly lurches down to grab a shovel.  
  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
  
  
She takes great pleasure in helping West dismember what's left of Dr. Carl Hill.

 


End file.
